Mega music festivals have been dabbling in art for years, commissioning sculptures and erecting flashy installations to decorate their grounds. Lollapalooza took a different approach by mounting its first big art show offsite.

Hanging in a loft-like gallery space within walking distance of Chicago’s Grant Park, where Lollapalooza was revving up Friday, are works by dozens of artists known for graffiti, album covers and other tough-to-categorize creations. The show, titled Art Alliance: The Provocateurs, was curated by artist Shepard Fairey, who partnered on the project with the producers of Lollapalooza.

The art isn’t confined to the gallery: four murals painted on Chicago buildings (with permission, by Fairey, POSE, RETNA and Cleon Peterson) will hang around long after the art show closes, on Aug. 4, a day after Lollapalooza ends with performances by Skrillex, Chance the Rapper, Darkside and Kings of Leon.

In an interview at the gallery Thursday, Fairey said the goal of working with Lollapalooza was simple: to broaden the reach of art. “I’d like to see more art function the way music does,” he said, “where you can have the most brilliant person in the room and the most unsophisticated person in the room both enjoying a song, but maybe for different reasons.”

In addition to street artists like Futura and Swoon, the show spotlights artists with connections to music. Devo co-founder Mark Mothersbaugh recorded a set of one-off records that hang under one of his paintings, next to a record player. Street artist Invader remixed album covers by Patti Smith and Bauhaus using pieces from Rubik’s Cubes. There are pieces by artists known for album covers, including Stanley Donwood (Radiohead), Eric Haze (Public Enemy), Jamie Reid (Sex Pistols) and Winston Smith, who updated his Dead Kennedys’ crucifix with guns in place of dollar bills.

Prints by Keith Haring include black-and-white images of a UFO and a herd of his trademark figures leapfrogging (or probably trampling) each other. Haring, Fairey said, symbolizes a rebel stance shared by other artists in the show–and even Lollapalooza itself back when it started in 1991.

“If you loosely describe Hering’s way of working as not adhering to the orthodoxies and the structures of the art world, or even society in general, I think that he’s a godfather,” said Fairey, wearing a David Bowie T-shirt. Fairey’s own paintings in the gallery includes a big one showing a hand clutching a bundle of grenades, a reference to old fruit labels that once celebrated America’s agricultural bounty.

For the artist behind the Obey Giant stickers and Barack Obama “Hope” image, the idea started when Metallica founder/art collector Lars Ulrich asked him curate an art show for the band’s Orion Festival. But Fairey was leery about putting up paintings in tents. However, he kept the conversation going with C3 Presents, the promoter behind Orion and Lollapalooza. A Lollapalooza pass doesn’t get you into the Provocateurs show, which was supported by sponsor Hennessy V.S. Admission is $12, and the space will also host performances by DJ Z-Trip, Deltron 3030 and others.

Fairey draws a distinction between the Provocateurs show and the art used to amp up the spectacle at other music festivals. At Coachella this year, for example, a massive inflatable astronaut got more attention than some of the bands on stage.

“In a way that’s icing on the cake of what you’re already going to be doing at Coachella. However that adds to the spectacle there, good for them. But I don’t know how much of the stuff at Coachella would really work as a stand-alone,” he said.

“This is a museum body quality of work that is easily accessible to Lollapalooza but doesn’t have to be concerned with the festival itself and being on the grounds.” He added, “We might get a few drunk people in here, but it’s not going to be the same kind of chaos.”